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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367713">eyes that speak volumes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostnfound14/pseuds/lostnfound14'>lostnfound14</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>not your friend, not your enemy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sex Education (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, WELL HERE YOU GO, but they are definitely destined for something greater, ruby is still soft, seriously idk why you trust me with these two, yall wanted a second part?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:53:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,792</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostnfound14/pseuds/lostnfound14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby knows that she owes Otis something. An explanation? An apology? Something. Something that will tell him things could be different. She doesn’t know what kind of different, as long as it’s <em>different.<em> Something better than barely being able to look him in the eye because of guilt. Something better than him looking at her like she did nothing wrong because she <em>did<em> and Otis is too nice to say anything.</em></em><br/>-<br/>Or, Ruby avoids Otis until she can't anymore.<br/>Sequel to "i don't think i'm in love with you," so read that before this piece.</em></em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Otis Milburn/Ruby (Sex Education)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>not your friend, not your enemy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>207</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>eyes that speak volumes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>haha guys guess what i started writing this the day i posted "i don't think i'm in love with you" and that draft turned out to be Not Good so thus followed a few days of reworking! i tried pretty hard to maintain ruby's vibe from the first fic (and the show) into this one which took a lot of tweaking. thank you to everyone who left such kind comments and kudos on the first part! without further ado, enjoy this dumpster fire :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Without meaning to (she definitely means to) Ruby avoids Otis for as long as humanly possible. It’s for the best, she reasons. She’s keeping from hurting his feelings. </p><p>Yeah, that’s bullshit. She’s hurting her own feelings. Otis probably understands why she’s being such a bitch. It’s because it’s who she has to be. He’s Understanding™ like that. He knows he’s insignificant, according to the social ladder. The only semblance of pseudo-status he ever accrued was when he did his “sex clinic” thing, but apparently that’s over now. Or at least, he’s stopped taking kids’ money. </p><p>Fucking status.</p><p>Otis deserves so much better than Moordale. He deserves better than to be treated the same way Ruby used to treat him before they had sex. Or maybe he just deserves better than her altogether. </p><p>The whole avoidance thing works out for a little while. That is, until she bumps into him. Like, literally bumps into him. Straight-on, in the hallways, while he’s walking with Eric Effiong. </p><p>The first thing she notices is his familiar scent of citrus. And the soft material of his tee-shirt, as her face burrows into it. </p><p>Otis grunts softly as Ruby bumps into him. Something she wouldn’t have expected is that he’s decently taller than her. But as she takes a step back, she’s forced to crane her neck upward and peer into his sad blue eyes. They look at each other in silence for a moment until Eric interrupts it:</p><p>“Oi, watch where you’re going!” He says, and the bite in his voice is, well, biting.</p><p>Ruby watches Otis stick a hand out in protest and he insists, <em> “Eric.” </em>Then his gaze returns to her and she’s so damn small already, why does he have to make her feel microscopic? “Be careful,” he tells her, and the softness in his voice makes Ruby swallow hard as he maneuvers around her, off to his next class.</p><p> </p><p>“Jesus fucking Christ, what’s wrong with you today?” Olivia asks as they sit down on one of the courtyard benches. </p><p>(Anwar is taking a “mental health day,” as he called it in their group text. It’s code for “I’m not in the fucking mood today so I’m going to get some Starbucks and fuck off to my house.” The silence that takes his place is readily welcomed.)</p><p>Olivia’s still an unbearable bitch. Not as much as she used to be, but still unbearable.</p><p>“What?” Ruby asks exasperatedly.</p><p>Olivia looks at her from the corner of her eye. “You haven’t said, like, <em> anything </em> in the last five minutes.” (Right, that was when she saw Otis from across the canteen. None of Olivia’s business.)</p><p>“Dunno,” she says, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. “Did you see Rahim’s outfit today? It’s quite–”</p><p>“Rahim wears the same fucking clothes every day,” Olivia snaps. “Stop dodging the question.”</p><p>Ruby sighs. Shit. “I don’t want to talk about it,” is all she can come up with. At least it’s truthful. She doesn’t want to talk to <em> Olivia </em>about this. </p><p>But something softens in the other girl’s gaze as they look at each other rather intensely in the eye. “You can talk to me about anything,” Olivia insists. </p><p>Ruby cocks an eyebrow. “Can I?” She asks, and this question causes Olivia to recoil slightly.</p><p>“I think so,” she says. “I don’t know, speak now or forever hold your peace.”</p><p>Ruby regards her for a moment. She can at least appreciate that Olivia is trying. They’ve associated with each other all this time but never truly been <em> friends. </em> As far as she knows, the only thing they have in common is their complete bitchiness.</p><p>“Maybe not forever,” Ruby finds herself saying.</p><p>Olivia blinks in surprise. Then she nods. “Whenever you feel like it.”</p><p> </p><p>Ruby knows that she owes Otis something. An explanation? An apology? <em> Some </em> thing. Something that will tell him things could be different. She doesn’t know what kind of different, as long as it’s <em> different. </em> Something better than barely being able to look him in the eye because of guilt. Something better than him looking at her like she did nothing wrong because she <em> did </em> and Otis is too nice to say anything.</p><p>So on a Wednesday, Ruby looks all over Moordale for Otis. He’s not in the canteen. He’s not in the history class they share. He’s not at school. But Eric is, so she approaches him before final block and asks him where he’s gone. </p><p>Eric regards her curiously for a moment, then his expression becomes one of realization. She has no idea what he realizes. But he smiles and tells her Otis is sick today and if she wants to talk to him she should go to his house. </p><p>Ruby nods and thanks him, hurrying off out of Moordale and heading for the bus. The entire ride over, she wonders what the hell she’s going to say. She should have thought about this harder. <em> Otis, I’m sorry for being an arsehole, and I understand if you never want to speak to me again, but I really like talking to you. </em></p><p>That would completely contradict her behavior for the past few days. He would shoot down that claim and tear it to pieces. Rightfully. </p><p>After a very unproductive twenty-minute ride, Ruby finds herself standing on the start of the dirt road that leads down to Otis’s house. Taking a deep breath, she begins to walk.</p><p>As she descends, the valley beyond Otis’s house becomes more visible. Lucky bastard. He’s got quite a view... before Ruby knows it, she’s at the steps leading down to his house. No turning back now, eh? </p><p>She rushes down them to the door, knocking three times, rapidly and rhythmically. “Just a minute!” A feminine voice calls from within. His mother. In a matter of seconds, the door swings open to reveal the same woman she had briefly encountered the last time she was in that house. It seems so long ago now. </p><p>Ruby is greeted with a scrutinizing frown. “You look familiar,” Dr. Milburn says, cocking her head to the side slightly. The gesture reminds her jarringly of Otis. </p><p>“Yes, sorry,” Ruby says, realizing she hasn’t introduced herself. “I’m Ruby.”</p><p>The older woman’s face alights with recognition. “Ah, yes! The girl who…” She suddenly goes silent. Ruby feels her face heat up slightly.</p><p>“Yeah. Is Otis in? I need to talk to him.”</p><p>“Yes, of course,” Dr. Milburn says, smiling warmly. “He’s upstairs in his room.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Ruby says breathlessly. Then she follows Dr. Milburn’s inviting hand inside and goes immediately for the stairs. The dread she had momentarily forgotten while conversing with his mother reappears in crushing fashion. She trips on one of the steps but catches herself.</p><p>“You all right?” Dr. Milburn calls from somewhere unseen in the house. </p><p>“Yeah,” Ruby responds. Well, there goes the element of surprise she had hoped to maintain, out the window. She climbs the last few steps and crosses the hallway to the door she knows is Otis’s. Her mind conjures up a hazy image of Otis and her making out aggressively, sloppily, against that same door, before they even made it inside–</p><p>The door is slightly ajar. Ruby considers simply opening it and maintaining some semblance of surprise, but – <em>no, we don't want to give the boy a fright, do we,</em> so she knocks on the door. She waits a few seconds and when she hears no response, she takes it as an invitation to enter.</p><p>Otis looks to be just beginning to stir from sleep, hair sprouting in hundreds of directions and eyes hooded. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and when he finally notices her, he rapidly shuffles into a rigid sitting position but then groans and grips his head in pain.</p><p>With his hands covering his face, he asks, “Ruby, what are you doing here?”</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you,” she explains when his hands fall to his sides.</p><p>“What about?” He looks and sounds properly suspicious. Ruby doesn’t blame him. She’s probably the last person he could have expected to visit him while he was gone.</p><p>“Can I sit down?” She asks. He stares for a moment but then shifts over a bit, indicating with an outstretched hand to make herself comfortable. He looks so small in his bed. Smaller than Ruby ever thought he could look. Ruby takes the spot he’s opened for her, looking down at him, feeling her heart beating strongly against her chest. “You got a fever?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Otis frowns. He’s probably getting impatient. Time to get to the point.</p><p>“You’re a nice guy, Otis,” is what she begins with. Solid start. Perhaps it can only go downhill from here.</p><p>He struggles with a response, eventually settling on, “Thank you?” </p><p>“And I’m a bitch.” With all of this bluntness, Ruby doesn’t know if she’s fishing for a compliment or simply trying to expel all of the turmoil she’s been putting herself through </p><p>“Come on–”</p><p>“Don’t lie,” she interrupts. “I am. Because you’ve been nothing but nice to me and I just avoid you in return.”</p><p>“Okay, maybe,” he agrees, shrugging. </p><p>Ruby scoffs, but she can’t help but smile. She bats him on the chest for good measure. “Shut up,” she says.</p><p>“But you just said–” He tries, sounding incredulous.</p><p>“Listen,” Ruby continues, “I’m here because I thought I owed you some kind of explanation for the way I’ve been acting.” She knows how difficult she’s being, cutting him off whenever he tries to speak, but she has so much more to say in order to fully remove this weight from atop her chest. </p><p>“You’re not doing a lot of explaining,” Otis points out. Piercing her train of thought right in the chest. </p><p>“Fair point,” Ruby agrees. “Look, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve always been a bitch. And nobody’s ever really been nice to me unless they wanted to get into my pants.” </p><p>The boy looks properly scandalized. If Ruby wasn’t trying to have a serious conversation, she’d laugh. “I never–”</p><p>“I know. That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re too nice to me. And I don’t know how to be nice back.” It’s terrifying, speaking this candidly. She’s never done anything of the like before.</p><p>“Ruby, you’re nice when you try to be,” Otis argues, and the honest, intense look in his eye gives her pause.</p><p>“... I don’t know about that,” she says haltingly. </p><p>“Eric told me all about your little apology,” he continues, and his expression morphs into a cheeky grin. “He really appreciated it.”</p><p>“That was because you told me to,” Ruby insists, feeling her face turn pink. She hopes he doesn’t notice. </p><p>“Ruby, everyone has their reasons to act the way they do. It’s not easy to control,” Otis says, a bit of intellectual smoothness seeping into his voice. It makes her ears burn.</p><p>“Oi, are you therapizing me now?” Ruby asks, hoping to throw him off his rhythm.</p><p>To her dismay, Otis rolls with it. “A little bit,” he responds, a tease of challenge in his voice.</p><p>“I’m not paying you for this session, then,” she says, pointedly inspecting her nails in front of him. </p><p>“No need.” </p><p>Ruby just has to say it – “I’m sorry.” She thinks back to when she was looking helplessly at Otis from the beginning of her driveway, unable to say the same thing.</p><p>And Otis asks just what she had feared: “For what?” </p><p>Now, though, she has an answer for it. “For avoiding you,” she says. </p><p>“I understand why you did it,” he says, his earnest eyes boring into hers.</p><p>“That doesn’t make it okay,” she almost whispers.</p><p>“I’m not mad at you, Ruby.” </p><p>This is getting too damn mushy. She’s got to put a stop to it. Everything Otis is saying is just reminding Ruby of how undeserving she is of his forgiveness. So she makes light: “Of course you’re not. Everybody loves me.”</p><p>“Obviously,” he says, suddenly smiling. Ruby’s evasion worked. Time to commit.</p><p>“Wait,” she muses, cocking her head to the side in mock-consideration. “You just admitted you love me. You lost.”</p><p>“That’s cheating,” Otis scoffs.</p><p>“No takebacks,” Ruby says, smirking devilishly. </p><p>“You’re insufferable,” Otis challenges, rolling his eyes and looking off to the side, but his smile prevails. </p><p>“I’m well aware, thanks.”</p><p>“I didn’t mean–” </p><p>“I know you didn’t,” Ruby says, effectively halting him for the umpteenth time. “Stop apologizing.” </p><p>He doesn’t say anything for some time. She doesn’t feel the need to, either. So they sit on his bed in comfortable silence, sometimes looking at each other and sometimes not. </p><p>A knock on the door breaks this bubble; the two teenagers turn their heads to see Dr. Milburn peeking in and peering at them over a pair of cat-eye glasses. “I’m simply checking in,” she says. Her voice is quite scholarly, even in this familiar setting. “Otis, do you need anything?”</p><p>Ruby glances back at him to watch him respond. A slight tint blooms on his cheeks. “I’m fine, Mum.”</p><p>“And, Ruby,” her gaze snaps back to the woman, “feel free to stay as long as you’d like.” </p><p>“Oh, I should get going anyway,” Ruby announces, splaying a hand across her chest. </p><p>Dr. Milburn nods. “Pleasure to have you.” The words sound like a formality. Like calculated politeness because she doesn’t know any other way to talk to Ruby. She doesn’t blame the woman. It’s probably the best treatment she could have hoped for, seeing as the only other time they’d talked to each other was after her one-night stand with Otis.</p><p>Without a flourish, Dr. Milburn closes the door, leaving Ruby alone with Otis again. </p><p>Another beat passes slowly between them. In the wake of this conversation, one that has helped Ruby to no longer feel like a selfish arsehole, something feels different between them. Maybe this is the “different” she had been thinking about earlier. </p><p>In one quick movement, Ruby lifts herself from his bed, lightly dusting off her pants. “Feel better,” she says to fill the silence that has festered.</p><p>“What if I don’t want to?” Otis asks, quirking an eyebrow. </p><p>Ruby gives him her best <em> I-don’t-give-a-shit </em>look and replies, “Then it was nice knowing you.” She turns on her heel and begins to strut out, prepared to make one hell of a dramatic exit–</p><p>“Ruby,” Otis calls. She stops immediately. There he goes, sucking the enjoyment out of making herself scarce. But she likes the way he says her name. Without condescension, like how Anwar greets her when he doesn’t like her top or her eyeliner. No, Otis says it with care, enough to bring a light dusting of pink to her cheeks.</p><p>“Yeah?” Ruby asks, her voice smaller than she would like to admit.</p><p>“Thank you for… this.” </p><p>She doesn’t need him to elaborate on what “this” is. “Of course,” she says, trying for a small smile. Then it falls, and she adds, “I really need to get going.”</p><p>“Right. See you,” he says, throwing her a two-finger salute.</p><p>With a little bit more flair than Dr. Milburn, Ruby makes herself disappear from the doorway and rushes down the stairs, through the foyer, out of the house. She has to get some room to process everything. What does all of this mean for their… friendship? Their whatever-this-is?</p><p>No matter how liberating it felt to explain herself to Otis, Ruby doesn’t know if she can handle the inevitable reactions she’d get if she were to publicly be seen with him. She can act as much as she wants, pretend that she really does not give a shit what Moordale thinks, but words fucking sting. Fuck whoever made up that stupid saying. </p><p>Ruby walks back up the dirt road to the bus stop, all the while considering how she’s going to go about talking to Otis from now on. She’s not going to actively avoid him anymore, but she can’t exactly act like his mate either, can she?</p><p>The bus arrives, and Ruby finds a seat, looking out the window and feeling like an actor looking dramatically out into the gray sky while some sad, introspective piano plays. </p><p>No, she and Otis aren’t, can’t be, friends. But Ruby can’t deny that whenever she’s around him, and he looks at her in that way he does, her hands shake a little bit and her heart does funny things. And that’s not a good sign, because one thing could lead to another, and…</p><p>No. Ruby won’t entertain this train of thought any further because it’s a Pandora’s box of sorts. So she decides, as she’s done with every other question that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no,” or “absolutely fucking not,” that she will ignore it.</p><p>Because that’s definitely going to work forever.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hope you guys enjoyed this second installment!<br/>(LITTLE TANGENT BECAUSE I HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO PUT IT BUT HERE: did anyone notice during the party scene where otis is being chaotic as fuck and talking about his whole love triangle situation, that when he made the joke about maeve the camera decided to focus on RUBY LAUGHING. RUBY. SPECIFICALLY. ONLY RUBY. just thought that was a very interesting little tease and subtle setup for future events. props to whoever made that decision. also, apparently in canon ruby's last name is matthews? idk if i'm gonna make that part of the tag or whatever. ok rant over)<br/>seriously i could not have hoped for a better response on the first fic of this series so thank you once again for that overwhelmingly positive feedback and i hope this continuation is up to par with that one! definitely a third part coming. fore sure. don't worry about it. maybe a fourth. okay, maybe not idk i'm just spitballing here.<br/>anyway. until the next!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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